``The No. 1 problem with housing is a shortage of what the working man can afford,`` Barr said. ``In big part that`s due to government regulation and builders` building more house than people need.

``Nationwide, we`re living in a never-never land in our ability to supply housing that people can afford. Today, everybody wants something more--more land, more gardens, more grass.

``The majority of builders and syndicators have a tendency to create something in their own image: What would I want to buy? And they are in an income bracket much fancier than a garden apartment. But in a recession, middle-income apartments will always do very well.``

Barr, 65, is a colorful and knowledgeable figure in the housing industry. As a former state representative, federal housing official and builder, Barr was commonly in the public spotlight. He also became an outspoken critic of the prosthetics industry after he lost his right leg in an explosion in 1970. As a syndicator and property manager for the last few years, however, Barr has maintained a lower profile, but the Joliet native still has strong opinions on the nation`s housing.

``There is never going to be condo conversion again,`` he said. ``Today, that market is being supplied by the `minimum house` of 1,000 square feet or less. The reason for the conversion boom from 1978 to 1982 was that builders were not supplying that market.

``But take the Chicago row bungalow, the original minimum house. Economically, very few of the people who bought them ever went broke, the taxes have been lower per square foot because they are built on less land, and they`re valued far above what they were built for.

``In most municipalities today you can`t build that bungalow. But the minute you put in rooms you don`t need or build on more land than you need, you run the cost up to where people can`t afford it. A bungalow with functional, modern architecture is the answer to that--if they`d let you build it.``

When he left the Air Force in 1944, Barr, the son of former Republican State Sen. Richard Barr, took a job in Kankakee as a door-to-door examiner for the federal Office of Rent Stabilization.

Nine years and six promotions later, Barr, just 33, was named by President Harry Truman to head the agency in Washington, D.C. Barr in 1947 introduced the concept of accelerated depreciation on residential real estate to Congress as a way to stimulate housing development after World War II.

Barr embarked on his home- and apartment-building career in 1953 when the federal rent stabilization office was disbanded. From 1957 to 1965 he also was executive director of the National Parking Association, a trade group of private parking facility owners.

In that capacity Barr toured the country supporting strict enforcement of parking regulations and privately owned parking facilities as a way to ease traffic congestion and parking problems in urban areas.

``I was doing well in the housing business but ended up giving too much money to Uncle Sam,`` Barr said. ``Then the crunch came in 1972 to `74, and I aged an awful lot in those four years trying to keep (the apartment projects) alive. I decided I never wanted to go through that again as a builder.

``In 1975 I found you could buy garden apartments for less than it cost to build them. Why? No. 1, the cost of construction had risen, and No. 2, zoning and regulatory boards were decreasing densities in the suburbs.

``But there will always be a tremendous need for middle-income apartments. People who have not bought a home, newlyweds, two girls or two guys out working--they all need somewhere to live. And the rate of

construction of this type of unit nationwide has been infinitesimal over the years.``

Barr built 5,000 houses in the Chicago area before 1976 in addition to constructing the garden apartments that he now backs with syndications. Two west suburban apartment complexes, Maple Lake in Woodridge and Prentiss Creek in Downers Grove, are examples of projects he built and now manages; Oakwood Apartments in southwest suburban Oak Forest is an example of a new